Staff Reporter
SHILLONG:
Six weeks after the Inter-State Bus Terminus (ISBT) started its operations in Shillong’s Mawiong, Right to Information (RTI) activist and Thma U Rangli-Juki (TUR) member Angela Rangad, on May 16, appealed to the chairperson of Meghalaya Lokayukta to conduct an investigation into the “shoddy” construction of the terminus.
“In the past few days, with just a little rain there has been leakages all over the construction and major cracks have emerged. It is something that we, the public, cannot accept because people’s money has gone into the making of the ISBT,” said Rangad.
Expressing hope that the Lokyukta will not delay instituting a probe into the matter, she said, “This is actually criminal negligence and it can actually lead to loss of lives.”
The ISBT was constructed at an approximate cost of Rs 48 crores and the work was executed by the State Public Works Department. Upon completion, it was inaugurated in July 2021 by the Union Home Minister Amit Shah and it became functional from April 1, 2022.
Rangad attributed the “substandard” work to the lackadaisical attitude of the Public Work Department (PWD) officers overseeing the contractors and construction of the ISBT, failure of the state Transport Department to examine the structural integrity of the construction, the corrupt practices of the contractors/construction company executing the work, and conflict of interest in execution of the project.
She also wrote to the chairperson, Bhalang Dhar, regarding the Asset Declaration and Asset Register of Public Servants of Meghalaya as mandated by Meghalaya Lokayukta Act 2014.
“We are asking for the declaration of assets register because they are supposed to file it. Through the declaration of assets, we can understand if there are disproportionate assets among our public servants,” she said.
Rangad said that there are rumours about public representatives and bureaucrats amassing wealth well over the Covid years by taking from the public coffers.
“We need to know the truth about this and one way of understanding whether this is real or not, is by simply finding out about their assets,” she said.
She further said that there has to be proper monitoring of disproportionate asset accumulation amongst “this class”, and added, “We hope that the Lokayukta will also ensure that this compliance is met with because till now, there does not seem to be a stick being used for public servants to ensure that they declare their assets.”
Referring to Section 45 of the Meghalaya Lokyukta Act, she said the Act clearly mentions that the public servants need to declare their assets annually.